It’s so easy to become excited about the opportunities to build online businesses that we often forget about the mechanics involved with making them a success. Forget the mechanics and you’ll dig yourself a hole. Get things right in the beginning and the income generated by your websites might grow to quickly outstrip what you’re currently earning. Creating an online business that generates a dependable income stream is not complicated. The trouble is, few marketers line up the necessary pieces before they start. Today, I’m going to give you an internet marketing blueprint. You’ll be able to apply it to any type of online business you create. It doesn’t matter if you’re selling information products, building membership sites, or promoting affiliate offers. If you address the following three factors, you can create a business that will continue to generate income for years.
Your Product
You must have a product to sell. This includes anything that adds value to someone else’s life. Don’t become bogged down by thinking only of information products and software. “Products” can include affiliate offers, services, and even seminars. Your “product” can include your blog posts, newsletter, or the information you give visitors on your content sites. All of these represent value to somebody. Most marketers create their own products. There are advantages to doing so, such as being able to maintain exclusive control of the quality and price point. It also gives you the opportunity to raise your own army of affiliates. And few things are more powerful than a large group of people happily promoting your products. If you don’t want to spend time creating your own products, you can acquire them from others. For example, you might hire a writer to create an ebook for which you own the copyright. Or, you might hire a voiceover expert to produce your CDs. You might contract a programmer to design a piece of software your customers will find useful. Ever notice marketers who sell dozens of items under their name? They rarely create them on their own. As I’m writing this post, I’m thinking of one person in particular who does this and generates $500,000 a year.
Motivated Traffic
The best products will die on the vine without a stream of targeted traffic. Creating an online business that generates a reliable income depends on producing this traffic. You can do it with search engine optimization strategies, pay per click advertising, feeder sites, squeeze pages, and social media marketing. You can also do it with blogging, video marketing, email list building, and small-scale media buys. Each of these traffic-building strategies deserves its own post (its own book, really), so I’ll leave the details for later. Suffice to say, if you can control the traffic, you own the key to a profitable online business. You should read Joe Marsh’s “How to get to the First Page of Google” it hold some Valuable material on getting quick targeted sustaining traffic!
Conversions
Let’s suppose you’re selling the perfect product. You also have a healthy traffic funnel through which you’re sending a large stream of motivated visitors. The last piece of the marketing puzzle is your ability to convert those visitors to buyers. Similar to developing traffic, there are many ways to increase your conversion rate. The good news is that you can test everything, collect data, and make changes quickly. For example, does adding a picture of a smiling female adult on your sales page increase the percentage of visitors who purchase your product? Does including another free bonus have an impact? How about offering a more generous guarantee? Would audio testimonials influence conversions? The number of elements you can test to increase your conversion rate is limitless. And you’ll be surprised by the things which can influence it.
A Seamless Income-Generating System
If you have a product that adds value, can generate targeted traffic, and are able to convert visitors to buyers, you have everything you need to build a profitable online business. Each factor is crucial. Controlling two of them without the third is a recipe for failure. But, if you invest the time to line up these three factors in the beginning, your business can generate an ongoing income. In past posts, I’ve described ways in which you can create or acquire products. I’ve also explained some of the most powerful marketing strategies you can use to generate traffic. I’ve also touched upon copywriting. We’ll be revisiting each of these areas soon to prepare you for creating your online business.
